What is liberal education?  When Plato, St. Basil the Great, and Albert Jay Nock agree on something, we should listen carefully.

https://egnatiavia.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-liberal-tradition-in-arts-and.html

by Richard K Munro rmunro3@bak.rr.com

I taught AP Spanish for years and Spanish for Native Speakers. One of the works I taught was PYGMALION (in Spanish) plus many other plays from the Quintero brothers and others. I always taught 2-3 plays per semester and fragments of novels as well as short stories newspaper articles and essays. Usigli was popular but no question the most popular plays were from Shaw and the Quintero brothers. I knew about Spanish versions of the Quiet Man, the Sound of Music and of course MY FAIR LADY from my years of living and studying in Spain. I studied four summers in Spain and lived in Madrid for two years. Ironically if I had not married I probably would have stayed in Madrid much longer. A bonnie place wi’ a sporran fu’ of Yankee siller. Madrid es buena cuando la bolas suena. Like the character in A Song of Sixpence by A. J. Cronin about the coming to manhood of Laurence Carroll and his life in Scotland and Spain. I had a brief moment in paradise in Spain (studying in Valladolid, Soria, Salamanca and Madrid). It was in the Cronin book I learned about the Scots College (formerly in Vallodolid now in Salamanca). Most of the teachers and priests of my father’s parish in Scotland 1915-1927 were educated there including FATHER COLLINS. Not a great book but very entertaining with some lyrical descriptions.

Spanish memories: my wife and used to listen to light classics and zarzuelas at her Grandparent’s house in Soria, Spain (c. July 1973) and drink Coca-Cola and eat anchovies. Don Benigno was a very cultivated man.

Don Benigo a retired country doctor was the only Spaniard I ever met who knew immediately Munro was a Scottish Highland name (and not Italian). I said how did he know that? He got up and got a book from his shelf and started to read to me THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS (in Spanish) Three of the main characters were Scottish Munros. He said, in a joke, that all his life he was waiting to meet an authentic Scottish Munro. We all laughed.

Later my wife gifted me the book which I still have. I now think that Don Benigno hoped I would marry his granddaughter. Many happy memories of visiting his house, listening to classical music, and playing chess. The tapas were always great! He never served me alcohol though I was only 17.

In memory, I can taste the rich old cane sugar Coca-Cola (I haven’t tasted the like in many years) and the salty anchovies.

In memory, I hear the ghost of a tune CONCIERTO ARANJEZ.

What is the greatest distance between two points?

Time of course. But it is wonderful to have had over 50 years of continuous memories and friendship.

Nothing like it.

Jump now to the time of Corona, in the year of our Lord 2020. “Conservative is kind of a meaningless word now,” a young and skilled writer (one I like to read, Brad Polumbo) recently stated on social media. Meanwhile, over at the venerable Intercollegiate Studies Institute, an institution charged with promoting conservatism within higher education, another young and gifted writer, Gracy Olmstead, writes: “I am loath, in fact, to embrace the label ‘conservative’ myself—in part because of the ways most people define it, and in part because I am unsure whether any political label fully defines my beliefs.”

I suppose it must be age and, perhaps to some extent, ego, but I find such statements to be as mystifying as they are unsatisfying. While I agree that conservatism is not, nor ever should be, a political label, I am far less certain that it should be loathed or dismissed so readily. I also fear that in this age of Trumpian populism and soft authoritarianism, conservatism is all too readily confused with populism.

The most important question for any conservative remains: what should be conserved?
— Read on www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/theres-no-real-definition-of-conservatism-and-thats-a-good-thing/

Is economics a liberal art?  The question is more complicated than you might think: https://egnatiavia.blogspot.com/2020/07/liberal-economics.html?fbclid=IwAR2RintLEggX9qz4r8PL1KNI4XgcsjBrPU8yQHbjBglVUQlMdxqyHZc0DI4

Stanislaw Augustus (1732-1798) was the last Polish king. Not without controversy, he was one of the greatest patrons of the arts and sciences in his day. In his many efforts, he supported publishing, libraries, architecture, education, painting, cartography, ballet, theater, and industry. He was also the co-author of the Polish constitution of May 3, 1791. A great and meaningful reformer, the last monarch essentially undid his own position.

In An Appeal from the Old Whigs to the New, the grand Anglo-Irish statesman, Edmund Burke, praised the May 3, 1791 constitution as one of the great reforms of the modern world. It should be remembered that this was the so-called “Age of Revolutions,” and Burke had witnessed both the glories of the American Revolution and the hideousness of the French Revolution. Poland’s reforms and constitution, he thought, offered real meaning, much closer to the American experience than the French one.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2020/07/edmund-burke-last-polish-king-bradley-birzer.html

What then does our conservatism mean in 2020? What does it mean as statues tumble, as injustice reigns, and as anger seethes? What does it mean when our leaders seek not the common good, but mob-ish acceptance? What does it mean when our children are indoctrinated with racialism and collectivism rather than individualism and personalism?

At its essence, conservatism has not changed over the years. While the debates may be about a variety of things, the meaning of conservatism lies in understanding that, taken as a whole, our ancestors are not utter fools. The past for the conservative must remain the great laboratory of human experience, human knowledge, and human wisdom. The past is our depository of strength, our trust fund of morality. Now, more than ever, we must preserve what has come before us. Every statue torn down by the violent is a terrorist attack on our very civilization and our very strength as a people. Like the unsung heroes of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451—the men and women who memorize each book burned by its society—we must remember and preserve our statues, our museums, and our cultural storehouses—even if only in our own minds and souls. Like those around the immortal Cato the Younger, we must become living embodiments of the virtues.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2020/07/conserving-2020-499-bradley-birzer.html

Experts on amphibious forces note the PLA already has powerful army units that are trained and equipped to make the kind of landings necessary for an invasion of Taiwan. In expanding the marines, they argue, PLA military planners are looking at operations across the globe, in places where China has extensive offshore investments. These commercial interests are likely to multiply as Beijing presses ahead with its Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious bid to put China at the center of global trading routes.
— Read on www.reuters.com/article/us-china-military-amphibious-specialrepo-idUSKCN24L17B